It’s a very foolish move to start a trade war with Europe, and I suspect Trump will back off this approach.

The problem (and it is not a new one) is China, which has paid zero attention to the concepts of free trade for decades. You cannot have free trade when one side constantly steals intellectual property and produces copycat products, pays no attention to health and safety, manipulates its currency to 25% below its true value, and dumps product at below cost prices when and wherever it feels like it. The problem Europe has with steel is if the US restricts cheap steel imports from China, they will be dumped on Europe instead.

The US passively accepted this situation for decades, driven by lobbying by large corporations who wanted to avail of free labor in China, and politicians and economists blindly supporting “free trade” which was anything but. In the decade from 2001 to 2010, something like 33 million jobs were lost between manufacturing and jobs depending on manufacturing.

Free trade is by far the biggest factor in the development of peaceful societies and the reduction of poverty. Look at the economic records of countries that embraced capitalism and free trade versus those that didn’t, the per capita GDP difference is about X10.

Where did I say they are the same thing? You are very thick, extremely so in fact for someone who self classifies as a top 5 poster.

They are all related. Free trade leads to economic growth and reduction in poverty, nations that rely on each other for trade tend not to go to war (the opposite being protectionism which leads to war).